Saturday, June 9, 2018

If There’s a Red Wave Election in 2018, This Will Be Why


Christopher Buskirk, New York Times, June 8, 2028

image (not from article) from

Excerpt:
Republicans have long criticized Democrats for dividing the country into competing grievance groups. Some now realize that the Republican analogue has been to divide the country into radically autonomous individuals based on a cartoonish misreading of libertarianism that replaces the free markets and free minds of Friedrich Hayek with the greed and hubris of Gordon Gekko. But that is changing quickly. There is a renewed emphasis on addressing America and Americans as a community characterized by fraternal bonds and mutual responsibility — what Lincoln called the “mystic chords of memory.” ...

When it comes to politics, most people don’t want to be addressed as members of a demographic group looking for a payoff. They want to be addressed as Americans. ...

The bonds of civil union that ought to hold us together demand that we love our fellow citizens in their imperfection even as they love us in ours. ...

If Republicans really want to win, then their pronouns must be we, us and our, and they have to make sure that the people who hear them know that they are included in we, us and our. That’s the key to building an enduring electoral majority and a better country.

Christopher Buskirk (@thechrisbuskirk) is editor and publisher of the journal American Greatness, a co-author of “American Greatness: How Conservatism, Inc. Missed the 2016 Election and What the D.C. Establishment Needs to Learn,” and a contributing opinion writer.

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